AES Student Blog

132nd Student Recording Competition — The Interviews, Part IV

SDA: How long did you work on your competition entry? Was this your first entry?

DM: With Malleus, who performed “Water Bearer” for Category 3, we recorded three songs within three days. It took me about 20 hours to mix “Water Bearer”; in the end, I worked hard on small details. On my film entry, “Paranormal”, I was pretty fast with a first version – it took me maybe 15 hours to write and produce the music. Later, I reworked some stuff, which took some time.

SDA: Tell us about the production of your entry. Stories? Inspirations?

DM: Shawn Everett had a big influence on the mixing of my entries. He is a Los Angeles-based engineer who I met at the Banff Centre, and he always has crazy, unconventional ideas and is lightning fast with Pro Tools. Also thanks to the Banff Centre, I learned a lot about music for film from Mark Willsher.

SDA: What initiated your passion for audio? When did it start?

DM: As a child, I loved my cassettes so much that I took them with me in my bed when I went to sleep. Apart from songs on the radio, the first thing I recorded with a cassette recorder was me and a couple of friends banging wooden spoons on cooking pots and switching on and off alarm clocks while I was shouting a poem that I wrote to annoy my older sister.

SDA: Funniest experience as an engineer so far?

DM: Once, I and a fellow student recorded a singer who was always dancing while he was singing. His dancing was so funny that me and my fellow student had to hide under the mixing desk because we were laughing so hard. We just could not stop.

SDA: Biggest mistake you made during a production?

DM: No mistakes so far ;-) (LIE)

SDA: Favorite frequency?

DM: 1/28800 Hz – it’s the frequency of my meals.

SDA: Favorite mic, outboard box, and plugin?

DM: KM140, 1176, iZotope Ozone (EQ and Exciter are great).

SDA: Best recording of all time?

DM: I really like the album California by Mr Bungle – it’s packed with strange sounds. But there are too many great recordings...

SDA: Do you play any instruments?

DM: Electric guitar (mostly rock), piano (mostly classical)

SDA: Any other hobbies?

DM: Repairing my bicycle. (It’s from ALDI, a cheap German discounter, and it breaks every month. Don’t buy your bike at ALDI.)

SDA: The best part of the 132nd AES Convention?

DM: Meeting people from Banff again.

SDA: The best thing about the AES organization?

DM: So many great members.

SDA: Where do you see yourself in 10 years?

DM: Hopefully I will be engineering and producing interesting bands, and writing music for films or video games.